We heard there was some kind of incident happening at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth. Information coming in to us was incredibly vague -- there may or may not be a shooter, maybe more than one -- and the school was on lockdown.

Out at the scene, we saw parents huddled under umbrellas staring desperately at the school from across London Blvd. They were begging us for information that we just did not have. Police and SWAT teams were everywhere. Police and the school system would tell us nothing -- perhaps because they did not know what was happening. Nearly everything we learned was from our police scanner, which was information we could not report without confirmation.

A little more than an hour later, it was over. There was apparently never a threat to the school. Parents reunited with their students and it turned out it was all an accidental drill.

I talked to Joseph Wiggins on Monday. He's the executive assitant to the division superintendent of Portsmouth schools. He commended the staff and police for carrying out a textbook response, though he noted the entire episode remains under review.

If parents are involved in that review, they will no doubt thank the school system and police for keeping their kids safe. But they will also ask why it was so difficult to get information as the situation unfolded. The school system told our Sula Kim that a text-messaging system or reverse 911 is too expensive. But certainly had they contacted the news media as the event was unfoding with whatever information they could provide, we would have passed that along immediately, providing at least minimal comfort to parents.

It was obvious parents were desperate for any morsel of information they could find. The ones standing out on London Boulevard last Friday would certainly ask for better communication whether the threat is real or just a frightening close call.